JJ Abrams says no to Khan

David Konow, 3rd December 2011

It's hard to restrain Trekkie enthusiasm with the production of JJ Abram's ST2 poised to kick off on January 15, 2012 for a May 17, 2013 release date.

Casting on the film is almost complete, and with Benicio Del Toro being wooed for a villain part, there's been much speculation and secrecy as to what role he's up for.

As we reported previously on TG, Del Toro himself had no idea who he'd be playing when he was first contacted about the part. You may recall that a report insisted he would be playing Khan, with many people speculating, with no proof of course, that Khan simply has to be the villain of the next Trek.

Apparently, "according to my sources" at Latino Review, the site claimed Del Toro is indeed up for Khan, and also reported, "Expect rebuttals and denials. Comes with the territory."

And indeed, that's exactly what came, a rebuttal and denial from JJ Abrams himself, who replied to Hit Fix with a simple, "Not true."

And as Cinema Blend notes, "I know some of you have voiced support for 'Benicio as Khan,' but it's really for the best if it's not true. By doing a reboot on an alternate timeline, the creators of the new Star Trek opened up an endless number of possibilities. If they had chose to do Khan again it would simply be a remake of Wrath of Khan and what's the point of that?"

As this blog post was being written, Cinema Blend fielded a poll asking, "Do you want Khan to be the villain in J.J. Abrams' next Star Trek movie?," and so far the "Hell yes!" percentage is 43%, with the "Hell no!" percentage 41%.